"Better" and "different" are two separate things. More than one of Ueshiba's direct students said that it seemed as if he were doing something completely different than they were - and they were right on target.

If you have a specific goal - "Aiki", for example, then some things are just going to be wrong, once you set political correctness and universal self-esteem aside.

If you have a non-specific goal - that whatever anybody does that makes them happy is fine, for example, than maybe it's a little different.

A major problem is that Ueshiba, as concerns Aiki, was doing something extremely specific, but in modern Aikido it has become a non-specific sense of general self-fulfillment.

Best,

Chris

Well, how do we empirically measure what is a wrong torifune? Or, worse, what if I am only doing it half-right, how do I know what I need to change to do it completely right? I am just asking for a description of a direct way to feel by contrast within my body the two opposite states of wrong torifune and right torifune, so that I can work from one to the other and gauge my progress. Surely there must be a better way than trying to just film yourself and ensure you look adequately like Morihei Ueshiba's way of moving.